Monster Study

The Monster Study' was a controversial speech therapy experiment conducted on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939. It was designed to investigate the cause and effect of stuttering by Wendell Johnson, one of the nation's most prominent speech pathologists, and his graduate student, Mary Tudor. The study has been criticized for its unethical treatment of children and is often cited in discussions on the ethics of psychological experimentation.

Background

Wendell Johnson, who himself suffered from stuttering, was a professor at the University of Iowa. His interest in the pathology of stuttering led him to theorize that the condition was not genetic but rather a learned behavior caused by a child's environment, particularly the negative reactions of parents to disfluent speech. Johnson's hypothesis was that labeling a child as a stutterer could actually induce stuttering behaviors.

Experiment

The experiment involved 22 orphan children, who were divided into two groups. One group received positive speech therapy, where children were praised for their fluency. The other group, referred to as the experimental group, received negative speech therapy, where children were belittled for every speech imperfection and told they were stutterers. Mary Tudor, under Johnson's supervision, conducted the therapy sessions.

Findings and Controversy

The immediate effects of the experiment showed that children in the negative therapy group exhibited more speech issues and lower self-esteem compared to those in the positive therapy group. However, the long-term effects were not systematically recorded, and the study was never formally published due to its controversial nature.

The ethical implications of the study have been widely criticized. The children were not informed of the nature of the experiment, nor were they or their guardians provided with the ability to consent. The negative impacts on the children's psychological well-being and speech were significant, with some reports indicating that the effects were long-lasting.

Legacy

The Monster Study earned its name from the negative public reaction it received when details were made public decades later. It has become a seminal case in discussions of research ethics in psychology and speech pathology. The study's ethical violations, including the lack of informed consent and the deliberate infliction of psychological harm, have been cited as examples of the necessity for oversight in psychological experiments.

The controversy surrounding the Monster Study also contributed to the development of stricter ethical standards for research involving human subjects, including the requirement of informed consent and the establishment of institutional review boards (IRBs) to review and approve research studies.

See Also

• Speech pathology
• Ethics in research
• History of psychology